James Havens created the sculpture “Woman with Book” as a tribute to public libraries. Using the geometric profile of the National Library logo as his inspiration James challenged himself to sculpt a contemporary figure to symbolize and celebrate the privilege of reading.

Creating this figurative sculpture from stainless steel exemplifies the craftsmanship that has defined the artist’s art career, and dubbed him “Man of Steel” by Sculptural Pursuit magazine.

The purpose of introducing you to Woman with Book is to invite you to consider adding this inspired work of art to your library. Placing this symbolic sculpture in a library setting will be more than a decorative enhancement to the interior or exterior setting, it will serve as a subliminal merging of symbolic visual art to a literary arts institution. The simplistic contemporary style of the piece has proved to be pleasant and agreeable to people of all ages.

The durability, size, and low maintenance of welded stainless steel make this sculpture conducive to indoor or outdoor placement.

The artist will include a commemorative bronze or stainless steel plaque in recognition of the acquisition as well as deliver and install the sculpture in the desired location.

“Woman with Book” details:

Weight: 255 lbs.

Dimensions: 72” x 24” x 29”

Asking price: $16,000 (includes plaque, delivery, and installation),

Questions can be directed to:

Robin Ballmer, Fine Arts Coordinator Representing James Havens

PO Box 207 Perrysburg, 43552 419-902-2782 [email protected]

Thank you for your consideration,

Robin Ballmer

James Havens

Experience

Local #55 International Association of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Ironworkers Ironworker 1968 - present (retired) Instructor, 2000 - present

The Havens Studio and Rose Foundry Owner and Operator 1986 - present

Arts Commission of Greater Toledo Restorer 1990's

Education

Woodstock School, Mussoorie, India

Lincoln Welding School, Cleveland, Ohio

Sculpture Shows

• Art 'Round Town, Saugatuck/Douglas Michigan

• Aaron Gallery, Washington D.C.

• Toledo Botanical Gardens,Toledo OH

• Grounds for Sculpture, Mercerville, NJ

• , Toledo, OH

• Alumni Show, Toledo, OH

• Roots of Diversity, Arts Commission of Greater Toledo

• McCormick Hall, Chicago, IL

• Schedel Gardens, Elmore, Oh

• White River State Park, Indianapolis, IN

• On a Pedestal, DCleveland Sculpture Center

• Willard Wankelman Gallery, Bowling Green, OH

• Owens Community College, Perrysburg, OH • Sculpture in the Village, Gibsonburg, OH

• Cobo Hall, Detroit, MI

• IX Center, Cleveland, OH

• Midwest Sculpture Initiative Shows in Tecumseh, Marshall, Canton, Jackson, Lancaster, Novi, Michigan, Ottawa Hills and Toledo in Ohio

• Flatlanders Gallery, Blissfield, MI

• Omnisphere Gallery, Toledo, OH

• American Gallery, Sylvania, OH

• Seagate Gallery, Toledo, OH

• 20 St. Claire Gallery, Toledo, OH

• Toledo Area Sculpture Guild Show, Secor Building, Toledo, OH

• Wayne State College, Wayne, Nebraska

Works in Permanent Collections

• "Detroit" private collection, (Aaron Gallery), Washington, DC

• "Sempiternum" private collection, Toledo, OH

• "Small Dancer" private collection, Toledo, OH

• "Graceful Dancer" private collection, Toledo OH

• "Seated Thinker" NASCO Corp. St. Paul, MN.

• "Topping Out" Ironworkers Union Hall, Toledo, OH

• "Eastern Tiger Swallowtail" Hospice of NW Ohio, Perrysburg, OH

• "Kneeling Chaplain" Veterans Memorial, Gibsonburg, OH

• "The Reader" Gibsonburg, OH

• "Peace" Woodstock School, Mussoorie, India

• "Large Joyful Dancer" Westgate Plaza, Toledo, OH

• "Standing Thinker" University of Toledo • "Yellow Butterfly" Ottawa Hills, OH

• "Joyful Dancer" Canton, MI

• "Mr. Stoddard's Geometry Class" Cibson Tool Company, Bridgewater, NJ

• "Butterfly" Willians Park, Gibsonburg, OH

• "Large Graceful Dancer" Memorial Hospital, Fremont, OH

• "OHIO" and "Crucifixion" Artists Collection , Woodville, OH

• Novi Public Library, Novi MI

• "Comet" Medical Center, Detroit, MI

• "Graceful Dancer" Lakeview, Oregon

• "Continuity of Space and Time" Kelly's Island, OH

• "Geisha Dancer" Nicarauga

• "Veronica Lake" Toledo, OH

• " Eastern Tiger Swallowtail" Warsaw, IL

• "Graceful Dancer" Hospice of N.W. Ohio, Perrysburg, OH

Memberships

Cleveland Sculpture Center

International Association of Bridge, Structural & Ornamental Ironworkers

International Sculpture Center

Toledo Area Sculptors Guild, Past President

Activities

Curator "Sculpture in the Village", Gibsonburg, OH

Organizer "Sky Pilot", Fulton County Memorial, Wauseon, OH

Sculpture Restoration for Arts Commission of Greater Ohio- Major Ritual; Family (Mother); Woman with Birds; Waiting for the Wind; Ruth; River Walk; Alices Arches and others Previous Exhibitions

• Aaron Gallery, Washington, DC

• Art 'Round Town, Saugatuck, MI

• Black Swamp Festival, Bowling Green, OH

• Cobo Hall, Detroit, MI

• Flatlanders Gallery, Blissfield, MI

• Ford Road Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, Canton, MI

• Grounds for Sculpture, Mercerville, NJ

• Harrison Rally Day, Perrysburg, OH

• Ironworkers #55, Union Hall, Toledo, OH

• IX Center, Cleveland, OH

• McCormick Center, Chicago IL

• Omnispere Gallery, Toledo, OH

• Roots of Diversity Show, Toledo, OH

• Schedel Gardens Outdoor Sculpture Invitational, Elmore, OH

• , Ottawa Hills, OH

• Sculpture in the Village, Gibsonburg, OH

• Seagate Gallery, Toledo OH

• Spectrum Gallery, Toledo, OH

• Toledo Area Artists Exhibition, Toledo, OH

• Toledo Botanical Gardens, Toledo, OH

• Toledo Area Artists Show, Toledo Museum of Art , Toledo, OH

• University of Toledo Alumni Show, Toledo, OH Man of Steel Man of Peace Ohio Sculptor, James Havens by David Seth Brass

ames Havens became motivated to teach himself to sculpt Jin stainless steel after stepping into the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1965 and viewing a stainless steel sculpture by David Smith. Havens considers Smith to have been a pioneer in the history of American welded sculpture. Havens was born in Peekskill, New York, in 1938. By the time he was two years old, he had already completed four round trips between New York and California. With a father who had a well established reputation in the construction industry, travel was bound to define the kind of person Havens would one day become. “I’d had a somewhat varied education, starting in California and moving on to Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Kentucky, Idaho, Wyoming, New York, and Illinois, finishing with three years at a missionary school in the Himalayas of Uttar Pradesh, India. “A week after I graduated, I got a job on the St. Lawrence as a welder’s helper. When the winter lay-offs came, I joined the Marine Corps. By the fall of 1958 I was in Beirut and then throughout the Mediterranean. Wherever the Marines took me, it was the same as when I’d been with my Father; the world was a wondrous place to see. Whether it was North America, Europe, the Middle East or Asia, the creations of God and man were won- drous. To go to these places and find that there was more, more and still more, then I knew it would be a good thing to build and create. It did not have to be big like a cathedral; it could be small and within the capabilities of one man. The most important thing was that it be done well, for that was the common denominator of all that I liked.” Discussing the time in his life that he acknowledged his artistic capabilities, Havens explained that he always felt creative impulses and has always been a reader. He thought he wanted to be the next Ernest Hemingway. To determine if the direction he was meant to take was in writing, he sent out submissions to publications, which surprised his wife Karen. After receiving many rejections and viewing David Smith’s sculpture at the museum, destiny and desire directed Havens into the visual arts. “I knew a little about welding. My Dad had taught me to use his welding machine when I was in the second grade. I had tried three different colleges already and I wasn’t going back to school. I knew I needed to learn more about welding and about metal. “In 1967 I joined the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron- workers’ Union. I then followed work in auto plants, coal-burning power houses, nuclear plants, high-rises, factories, shipyards, wherever steel construction was needed. During this time, the need to improve my welding was apparent, so I went to the Lincoln Welding School Facing Page: in Cleveland, Ohio and became a certified pipe and plate welder. In the mid 1970s, friends Artist with DANCER II and I started a steel fabrication and erection company, but by 1983 this became so demand- Above: ing that I was, to some extent, losing sight of my goals and decided to put it aside.” GHANDI Clay Potrait in Process

Sculptural Pursuit 31 Havens talked about Jim Davis, a co-worker and friend for whom he had a high regard. “He was a wonderful man, very knowledge- able. People don’t realize how much you can learn by working one on one with a person who is a very capable craftsman. I worked with him day in and day out. You talk about small classrooms, one instructor and one student. You can pick up an immense amount of knowledge if that is what you want to do.” Havens would spend up to twelve hours a day with Davis. During work time, meals, and coffee breaks, they always talked about ironwork. Havens felt bad that it wasn’t possible to bottle up the wealth of knowledge that Davis and others had accumulated. The sculptor takes great pleasure from his work as an art and welding instructor at Owens Technical College, located in Ohio. Many of his students repeat his classes to learn what he has attained through his association with professional iron workers. Havens described how one of his students was frustrated and unable to begin a welded sculpture project. He told her, “You are

From Top: Artist with CONTINUITY OF SPACE IN TIME 62” x 60” x 30” PEACE 89" x 69" x 29" THREE ARCS WITH EQUAL RADII 67" x 65" x 45"

32 Sculptural Pursuit “ Art is not mathematics; it is not spelling; it is not one of these empirical things. This is something that is intuitive, and you just take it and do it.”

trying to think too much about art. Art is not mathematics; it is not spell- ing; it is not one of these empirical things. This is something that is intui- tive, and you just take it and do it. Put your hands on it and start doing it. You don’t have to have an idea; just pick up the torch; pick up the welding machine; take two pieces of metal, and start putting them together. Don’t even think about not knowing what you are going to do; just do something and something will come out of it.” Havens said that each time she followed his advice, it worked. She began, first believing in him, and then by developing confidence in her own skills. Havens talked about when he actively began pursuing sculpting and about his early work. “In 1970 I’d made my first sculpture that met with accep- tance. The piece was a fourteen foot tall Cor-ten and stainless steel sculpture of the Crucifixion. With that piece, I knew I had a chance and would continue to build my sculptures in my off time. In 1984 I felt it was time to be more committed. The ability, knowledge, skill, creativeness, and ingenuity were coming together, and I needed a place to make it happen. I purchased land and erected a studio in Gibsonburg, Ohio. Grinders, sanders, rollers, benders, saws, welders, plasma arcs, cutting torches, welding tables, anvils, vises, clamps, air compressors, overhead chain falls, and a multitude of hand tools were acquired and put in place, and the sculptures of welded stainless steel were then built.” Havens’s studio and the Rose Bronze Foundry he owns and operates are housed in a 3,300 square foot steel building that took eight years to build. The studio also contains an office, gallery, modeling room, and fabricating room. The one-acre site is serene and picturesque, and a number of sculptures are displayed around the property. Explaining his interest in, and the challenges and pleasures of, sculpting in stainless steel, Havens said, “To work in stainless steel naturally draws comparisons to the work of the late David Smith. Do I mind? Of course not. He was there first, a trailblazer for some to follow if they could.

From Top: THINKER, 5’ x 4’ x 3’6" NATIVE SON Stainless Steel and Found Objects Right: Artist in Studio Below: DANCER II in the Studio 79” x 40” x 24”

of the flat plate material. The texture with which Havens completes his stainless sculptures is stunning. Some observers Stainless is a bear. I mistake the highly reflective texturing, created by using mean it is so tough at body sanding disks applied with a right-angle grinder, as times, but the results are the strokes of a paint brush. the whole thing. When Although Havens is most recognized for his work in you get done, you really stainless steel, his abilities go beyond the abstract style of have something. The many of his monumental works. He has built a foundry interior structure of the and produced several lifelike bronzes. He is currently Statue of Liberty, the completing a bronze bust of Gandhi, an impressive whole new structure on realistic depiction of the holy man. He is preparing to the inside, has been seek commissions for both the bust and full body sculp- replaced with stainless tures. Viewing photographs of the sculptures that Havens steel, and the engineers has completed over the years, it is easy to appreciate the say that even in the salty success he has had in finding permanent public and atmosphere of New York private collections across the country for his work. Harbor, it will last 1,000 years. Now that is part of the glory of stainless steel. It may be a tool breaker, and it SEMPITERNUM, a six foot tall expression of birth, may test every bit of knowledge and skill that you have to rejuvenation, and life, found its home with the Danbury make it work. It is very difficult and if you put too much Company in Ohio and was purchased through one of heat in it, it will distort in a second. It is darn hard to cut many exhibitions that Havens has been juried into at the most of the time, and it is very difficult to do a decent prestigious Toledo Museum of Art. weld on it and make it look the way you want but, again, Havens’s beautiful DANCER series is a study of the the results are everything. It is such a wonderful, won- human form, modeled after gymnasts and ballet dancers. derful medium in which to work. It reflects the light His goal was to create the symmetry of an hourglass in his beautifully. On a nice blue day, the reflection of the sky figures. NATIVE SON is a six foot tall abstract sculpture bounces off of it. You get the reflection of the green that Havens created to depict the typical Midwestern grass, the clouds. If it is nighttime, lights reflect and it industrial worker. The stainless steel and bronze sculpture looks like the facets of a diamond.” contains gears within the center of the piece, which were Choosing to use stainless steel for sculpture is an expen- acquired from a printing press that was once used by the sive proposition. Havens usually draws his ideas out on Toledo Blade, a local newspaper printed not far from the floor of his studio with soapstone and produces a where Havens lives today. “It’s an abstract of a man, and maquette before he cuts out the pieces for a larger it is based upon someone working with his hands. sculpture. The sculptor has developed a fluid style in his Toledo’s industrial roots are reflected in the work. The stainless steel body of work that seems to push the limits pyramid shows the foundation of the city and its growth.”

34 Sculptural Pursuit Right: SEMPITERNUM 72" x 63" x 30" Below: FRENCH CURVE

One sculpture that Havens created carries with it a story of which the artist is very proud. “On March 16, 1988, Sadaam Hussein bombed Halabjah’s 85,000 Kurds with chemical weapons. Halabjah is a small community between Iran and Iraq on the Iranian border. Hussein’s armies gassed 5,000 men, women and children. Iran, shortly after that, advertised in all of the international art magazines for the creation of a holocaust memorial; the prize was $50,000 dollars.” Havens entered the competition with an idea in mind for the entry that involved the first written word in world history for “peace.” His investigation determined that the first written language was Sumerian cuneiform, a language created out of necessity for the grain trade circa 2500 B.C. His proposal to Iran for the creation of a ten-meter peace sculpture in cuneiform was so well received that Havens received phone calls and faxes regularly from the Iranian architect who was respon- sible for the project. Unfortunately, the entire project came to a halt with the start of the Persian Gulf War, and Havens never heard from the architect again. Havens began exhibiting a seven foot stainless steel version of the PEACE sculpture, the maquette for the competition he had entered in Iran. While well received in a number of venues, the sculpture generated positive reviews as a geometric shape rather than for the significance of the cuneiform symbol. Havens’s classmates, from the Woodstock School in Mussoorie, India, came up with the idea that it would be wonderful if a sculpture of his could be installed at their Alma Mater. The school promotes peace and diversity, and includes students from Asia, the Middle East, and Australia who use the school to learn English in preparation for Western educations. Havens discussed the significance of the PEACE sculpture with some of his former classmates who became enthusiastic about it. In June 2004, in celebration of the Woodstock School’s sesquicentennial, the class of 1957 gifted the school with Haven’s sculpture. The sculpture now resides at the school on a terrace that has been formally renamed the Peace Terrace. Havens understands the power of the PEACE sculpture for himself and others. “You know, when you’ve got something like the Peace sculpture over in the Himalayan mountains and, perhaps, it is easily something that could be there three hundred plus years, and it is going to affect school youngsters, kindergarten through twelfth grade, that is powerful, very powerful. If that is not enough to get you out of bed in the morning and get you charging, I don’t know what could be.” James Havens is a member and past president of the Toledo Area Sculptors Guild, and an exhibiting member of the International Sculpture Center, a member of the National Sculpture Society, and of the Cleveland Sculpture Center. For more information about his sculptures, please contact him at: 521 West Main, Woodville, Ohio, 43469. u

Sculptural Pursuit 35